Soldier Reminded of Liberian Childhood

Published 8:00 pm, Tuesday, May 13, 2003

When Iraqi children run up to Pfc. Harrison Grimes on the streets of Baghdad, asking for candy or looking curiously at the U.S. soldiers standing guard, it's a bit like looking in the mirror.

For Grimes, the dusty streets, the extreme heat, the palm trees and the staccato sound of automatic-weapons fire are all familiar _ things he grew accustomed to growing up in his West African hometown of Monrovia, Liberia.

"When I look at those little kids, I think: `That was like me 10 years ago,'" says Grimes, 23, who remembers seeing troops protecting the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia. "I used to be on that side, and now I'm on this side. It's a good feeling, knowing that I've come a long way; I made it through all that."

Grimes, whose parents now live in Eden Prairie, Minn., is an infantryman with A Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment and was among the first U.S. troops to occupy Baghdad.

His unit patrols parts the capital and guards a Roman Catholic hospital in the eastern part of the city, where dozens of children gather around the soldiers daily to ask for candy or money and practice their English.

While most U.S. troops never seen a shot fired in anger before the invasion of Iraq, Grimes witnessed years of civil war before reaching the United States in 1996 at age 16.

Many teenage boys ended up joining one of the myriad rebel militias that roamed the Liberian streets during that period, fighting for control of the country and looting.

Grimes' parents, civil servants before the fighting began in 1989, were strict and wouldn't allow him to join the militias.

"If it wasn't for my parents, I would have been a soldier back then," he says.

After his family moved to Minneapolis, Grimes graduated from high school and worked three jobs until he joined the military. He had always wanted to be a pilot but decided to join the infantry to get in shape, learn about weapons and apply for flight school from the inside.

His parents backed his decision. Besides, he says, they knew the U.S. Army was nothing like the Liberian forces who looted their farm and terrorized them in squalid refugee camps.

After his family's home was shelled with mortars in one round of fighting, Grimes remembers taking refuge near the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, where he saw Marines manning the walls. He knew all the fighters in Liberia feared U.S. forces' training and equipment.

Years later, he joined the U.S. Army and quickly found himself in Kuwait preparing for an invasion of Iraq.

During battle, Grimes remembered what it was like to be a civilian, to hide in his home while the fighting roared outside and to worry about the crossfire. He felt for Iraq's civilians in ways that other U.S. soldiers could not.

After the unit's first battle, Grimes says the combat was far less savage than the street fighting he'd seen in Liberia. For that he was thankful. He tried to warn his fellow soldiers, some of whom wanted a chance to test themselves in more intense combat.

"There were other soldiers who were like, `I want to get in a heavy firefight, I want to earn my combat infantryman's badge.' And I was like `No, you don't really want to do that,'" Grimes says.

He'd seen battles where dozens of people died in close combat, tens of thousands of bullets were fired and both sides suffered heavy casualties from machetes and bows and arrows.

While some of the infantrymen in Grimes' unit did get involved in street fighting in Baghdad, his squad didn't see much action. Grimes fired warning shots, but never wounded or killed anyone.

"I'm happy about that," Grimes says.

He acknowledges that when the war began, he questioned whether the United States should be invading Iraq. But once he was in Baghdad, and civilians told him how much they appreciated the U.S. intervention, he was reminded of the dictators in Liberia and how the people had begged the U.S. Marines back then to liberate them.

Now, he says, he's proud of helping to drive Saddam Hussein from power.

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"Everyone is shaking your hand, making you feel like a hero and stuff," Grimes says. "We did do the right thing? No doubt about it."